WORD: Top 5 Books About Pittsburgh, PA: Steel, Sports & Science--and the Universality of Childhood & Coming of Age

Because I am both a literary nerd and lover of my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA--and because I have the luxury of time to think about such things due to the COVID-19 pandemic--I present to you my list of "Top 5 Books About Pittsburgh, PA."

I think this list conveys some key things that any Pittsburgher can relate to and that anyone desiring a crash course on Pittsburgh should know. Some of the books are historical, others are fictional, but all are set against the unique backdrop of the hills, rivers and mills that are the quintessential landscape of southwestern PA.

As alluded to in the title, however, you don't have to be a current, past or future Pittsburgher to appreciate these works. Annie Dillard's description of youth are delicious for any reader and who can't relate to Charlie trying to find his place in the world in Perks of Being A Wallflower? I'd also gamble that most people in the world have heard of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s--even if not typically a sports fan.

But do you know the rich cultural history of Pittsburgh as presented in The Paris of Appalachia? And even if you do, perhaps you not only study it, but celebrate it! Further, Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town, can be viewed as a depiction of American industry in general as much as a detailing of the rise and fall of the steel industry in Pittsburgh.

And yet, this list just scratches the surface. What books have you read? What books would you add? Delete? I look forward to your comments so that I might more adequately fill the virtual shelves of my Pittsburgh lexicon repository. :)

Without further adieu, I welcome you into the quirky and complex conversation that is my beloved Pittsburgh, PA.

Happy reading!

~ Meghan King Johnson (Editor-in-Chief)

1) An American Childhood by Annie Dillard

From publishersweekly.com:

"Dillard's luminous prose painlessly captures the pain of growing up in this wonderful evocation of childhood. Her memoir is partly a hymn to Pittsburgh, where orange streetcars ran on Penn Avenue in 1953 when she was eight, and where the Pirates were always in the cellar. Dillard's mother, an unstoppable force, had energies too vast for the bridge games and household chores that stymied her. Her father made low-budget horror movies, loved Dixieland jazz, told endless jokes and sight-gags and took lonesome river trips down to New Orleans to get away. From this slightly odd couple, Dillard (Teaching a Stone to Talk acquired her love of nature and taut sensitivity. The events of childhood often loom larger than life; the magic of Dillard's writing is that she sets down typical childhood happenings with their original immediacy and force." 

2) Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town by William Serrin

From amazon.com:

“Homestead, Pennsylvania, was the city Andrew Carnegie built to make steel. For a century it made its mill owners fortunes and armed America through two world wars. It became the site of a defining battle between management and organized labor and gave thousands of families a livelihood and a way of life. When Homestead died in 1986, it was because steel could be made more cheaply elsewhere -- and because the logic of the time decreed that a town and the people who lived in it were as disposable as any other kind of industrial waste.

In this crucial, important book, Homestead's story unfolds with galvanizing vividness and tragic depth. It is a blistering report on the fate of America's backyards -- a book that is dangerous to ignore and impossible to forget.”

3) The Paris of Appalachia by Brian O'Neill

From amazon.com:

“This isn't so much a history of Pittsburgh as it is a biography. Sometimes we're so afraid of what others think, we're afraid to declare who we are. This city is not midwestern. It's not East Coast. It's just Pittsburgh, and there's no place like it. That's both its blessing and its curse.”

4) Their Life's Work: The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers by Gary M. Pomerantz

From amazon.com:

“The definitive book of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers’ (Scott Brown, ESPN): A unique literary sports book that—through exquisite reportage, love, and honesty—tells the full story of the best team to ever play the game.

The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: ‘Mean’ Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth. In ways exhilarating and heartbreaking, they define not only the brotherhood of sports but those elements of the game that engage tens of millions of Americans: its artistry and its brutality.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews, Their Life’s Work is a richly textured story of a team and a sport, what the game gave these men, and what the game took. It gave fame, wealth, and, above all, a brotherhood of players, twelve of whom died before turning sixty… They said they’d do it again, all of it. They bared the soul of the game to Gary Pomerantz, and he captured it wondrously. ‘Here is a book as hard-hitting and powerful as the ‘Steel Curtain’ dynasty that Pomerantz depicts so deftly. It’s the NFL’s version of The Boys of Summer, with equal parts triumph and melancholy. Pomerantz’s writing is strong, straightforward, funny, sentimental, and blunt. It’s as working class and gritty as the men he writes about.’ (The Tampa Tribune, Top 10 Sports Books of 2013)."

5) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

From goodreads.com:

"This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up."

THE MOST HONORABLE MENTION:

Silent Spring by Pittsburgh native, Rachel Carson

From rachelcarson.org:

“Serialized in three parts in The New Yorker, where President John F. Kennedy read it in the summer of 1962, Silent Spring was published in August and became an instant best-seller and the most talked about book in decades. Utilizing her many sources in federal science and in private research, Carson spent over six years documenting her analysis that humans were misusing powerful, persistent, chemical pesticides before knowing the full extent of their potential harm to the whole biota.

Carson’s passionate concern in Silent Spring is with the future of the planet and all life on Earth. She calls for humans to act responsibly, carefully, and as stewards of the living earth. Silent Spring inspired the modern environmental movement, which began in earnest a decade later. It is recognized as the environmental text that ‘changed the world.’ She aimed at igniting a democratic activist movement that would not only question the direction of science and technology but would also demand answers and accountability. Rachel Carson was a prophetic voice and her ‘witness for nature’ is even more relevant and needed if our planet is to survive into a 22nd century." ℘℘℘